The Unforgotten
by Ananke
Summary: sixty years after Voyager's return home, Tom Paris visits the Guardian of Forever.


Title: The Unforgotten  
Series: VOY Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: All characters herein owned by Paramount Studios. No copyright infringement intended.  
Summary: Tom Paris visits the Guardian of Forever, and a lingering memory. Note: Some dialogue taken from 'Thirty Days'.  
  
---  
"Forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetting...   
A wounded person cannot -- indeed, should not --   
think that a faded memory can provide an expiation of the past.   
To forgive, one must remember the past,   
put it into perspective, and move beyond it.   
Without remembrance, no wound can be transcended."   
-- Beverly Flanigan  
---  
We do not understand ruins until we ourselves have become ruins.  
-Heinrich Heine  
---  
Tom Paris felt old.   
Sitting the padd he had been reading down almost absently on the nightstand, he angled his head slightly, taking in the view beyond the rustling curtains. Earth, autumn. Peaceful, inhumanely haunting. Shaking his head, he glanced back to the corner. Always working, never still. She was quiet, he could give her that, not disturbing Tom was high priority for just about everybody he knew lately. He let them cosset. If it made them feel better...  
Fingers stilling over their work, his companion glanced up, meeting his gaze with a faintly embarrassed smile. "Time carried me away, I guess. Would you like tea, or water?"  
  
"Coffee."  
  
"I didn't know you liked it." Standing, the Klingon-human hybrid moved over to the replicator.   
  
"Haven't in a long time. Decades. Sip of the past, I think." He hated the incomplete sentences, the way a handful of words ended up fuzz. It wasn't all age, he had known people sharp as a dagger till the end. Tuvok. Janeway. Chakotay. Maybe the sickness. God knew, the medicines hadn't helped any of the other symptoms.  
  
A dark hand settled on his shoulder, gently pushing him to a sitting position, easing the coffee...lidded, cooled, like a baby's...into his hands. "I'm asking the Doctor to step up your dosage."  
  
"I want to know when I die, thank you very much." It was the old argument, and he felt faintly more alive.  
  
"Don't see why." The tones were soft, amused. "I hear the last show is a real downer."  
  
He looked away. "You don't have to stick around."  
  
The hands withdrew sharply, atmosphere chilling. "I'll call Harry if you don't want me around."  
  
Dammit, dammit. He fought the frustration, reaching out, capturing her arm. "No, stay. Sorry. Missed you."  
  
"I've missed you too." Her lips were pursed when he glanced back around, eyes tearing. She wouldn't cry, of course, tears were unKlingon, he was sure her mother had taught her that. God, what had the time and distance done to them?   
  
He sighed, releasing the arm. "Is she coming?"  
  
The eyes softened. "I...I don't think she's coming."  
  
Of course not.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
So was he. "Don't be. You're here."  
  
"Tom."  
  
Daddy, damn you, I was your Daddy, before...before. "Shut up."  
  
Miral Paris ignored the outburst, faintly gray threaded hair swinging about her face as she looked down at him. "I'm calling the Doctor."  
  
Couldn't he die in peace, if not happily? "No." He put firmness into the unchanged voice.  
  
"Paris..."  
  
"Dammit, Miral, I don't want your petting!"  
  
She stepped back, shoulders stiffening, looking so unbearably like her mother in anger he had to groan. "Fine, that's it. So B'Elanna Torres isn't coming to your deathbed. Do you blame her? What about the dozen meetings in the past year she's offered and you've refused? What about that com conversation last week, the one where you screamed at her until she broke down and cried, Paris? You're both old, stupid fools, but still capable of hurting each other. I'm sick and tired of being in between it all. I always have been, my whole life...nearly sixty years, for Kahless sake! I can't take any more. I can't."  
  
"Miral..." Raising both hands to his temples, the former pilot sighed. "Stay. Sorry. Just call Harry. I need him."  
  
Faster than the speed of light, he thought wryly. Busiest man in Starfleet, and Admiral Kim didn't bat an eye as he came into the sickroom less than an hour later. "You called?"  
  
"I called." Determined not to be forgotten, Miral stood at the foot of the bed.  
  
Tom ignored her. "Harry, I need you to get me in a shuttle."  
  
"I can arrange it easily, but where?"  
  
"Can't tell you that."  
  
"You intend to tell the pilot on the way?"  
  
"I'll pilot myself."  
  
"You can barely sit up."  
  
"You'd be surprised, old lady. Leave us alone, will you?" Glaring at his daughter as she left, Paris turned his attentions back to his best friend. "Harry, I'm begging you."  
  
"If this is about B'Elanna or Miral..."  
  
"It isn't. Not either of them." Meeting the admiral's gaze, he smiled slightly. "Swear. It's about Kes."  
  
"Kes?" Kim sat, brows climbing. The years had done much to both of them, Tom thought fondly, but they sure hadn't wiped that perplexed innocence from Harry's eyes.  
  
"Starfleet found a padd on Voyager. Holodeck nook. To me, from her. She told me of a future...I need to visit the Guardian of Forever."  
  
"The Guardian of Forever?!" The head of Starfleet Command all but exploded from his chair. "Tom, the whole planet is strictly off limits. *I* have trouble defending my right to visit on official business. You can't just march in and interfere with timelines..."  
  
"Don't want to interfere." A guilty white lie, but...he knew Harry like an old shoe. A straight-laced old shoe. "Please, I just need to see. What she didn't see."  
  
---  
  
The shuttle Cochrane-A settled down Forever World gently, steered by the unchanged skill of Tom Paris.   
  
Cursing the hampering medical technology that somehow was supposedly also helping him carry on with walking and other fine basic activities, the old man settled his feet into the dust, staring into the distance. From behind, more murmured curses and complaints echoed as Admiral Kim and Miral Paris reluctantly disembarked. He ignored them, moving ahead.  
  
"Tom." Harry had worked on the whip-sharp command tone, it worked. Sighing, his friend looked back. Kim shook his head warningly. "No interference."  
  
"Sure, sure." Leaving them at a distance, he paused directly in front of the monolithic gateway.  
  
"I am the Guardian of Forever."  
  
Voice of God, eh? He considered. How did it work? A word, a phrase, a litany? Would he ever find exactly what he wanted in the eons the Guardian held? Not unless he tried. Stiffening, Tom Paris met fate unflinchingly. "Show me Tom Paris and Linnis Paris, from the death of Kes onward."  
  
And the Guardian did.  
  
~~~  
~~~  
  
"Father?" Moving into her childhood quarters gingerly, Linnis whispered for lights, gaze taking in the disarray and, finally, her father. "Daddy." He was awake, and eyeing her, so she worked a little indignant scolding into her tones, brushing away the empathy. "Look around you. If the Captain called a review..."  
  
"He won't." The mumble was sleepy, half-hearted. Grimacing, Paris pulled himself up from the couch. "I'll clean it, though. After a shower and meal."  
  
"Andrew wants you to eat with us tonight."  
  
"No, you do. Just know I won't refuse my grandson." Replicating a glass of water, he returned her stare.  
  
She backed down. "Possibly, but Andrew does want to see you. He misses Mother enough, and with you hiding yourself away..."  
  
"I'm not becoming the lousy widower, Linnis, don't you even suggest it."  
  
"No, just lousy company."  
  
"You know, if you were anyone else, I'd be tempted to hate that perceptive sarcasm of yours, young lady."  
  
"But I'm not anyone else." She smiled, reaching up to kiss his cheek. "I'm your daughter, and you happen to be the parent I inherited it from."  
  
He grinned wryly, giving in. "Right. Go on home, butterfly, and tell Andrew I'll be over for dinner."  
  
After waiting for the door to close, Lieutenant Commander Tom Paris sighed, staring at the picture still half-buried in the mound of pillows and blankets. Kes, holding a baby Andrew. "God, how I miss you." He whispered, remembering saying the same too few years ago, to another dead. Burying his head in his hands, Paris cried.  
  
"Grandpa." The word never failed to make him start, it was too damned ludicrous, but the voice behind it could bring nothing but warmth. "Grandpa, Mom says you've forgotten the time again."  
  
Brushing a hand across his eyes, he tried for a look of normalcy, sitting the picture down on the coffee table as Andrew Kim crossed the living area. "So I did. She'll scold me, I bet."  
  
"Just hum in your head until she quits."   
  
He laughed, standing and leading way into the corridor, into his daughter's quarters. "I'll remember that."  
  
Linnis turned from the table, eyes alight with rare, childish delight. "You recommended that I accompany the away team to the Monean homeworld."  
  
"I thought you might like it. It's hard, at times, I guess, for you. You've grown so fast and had to take in so much that trying to keep you up to date as far as off-ship experience goes is impossible." He touched her arm briefly, helping clear the various padds scattered across the table. "Besides, it'll do you good. I know you've been dealing with your mother's death badly too."  
  
Her hand was tiny, fragile as it rested on his. "Thank you."  
  
"Nothing for it, kid." Hearing the door open, he grinned as his 'son-in-law' entered, barely avoiding Andrew's whirlwind attack.  
  
"Now, wait a minute..." Patting the dark head awkwardly, Harry Kim eyed the rest of the family. "Is this one of those rare days of sentimentalism?"  
  
"Of course not, Har."   
  
"Never." Sweeping away, Linnis smiled back at them both.  
~~~  
~~~  
  
"You've seen enough." Miral's velvet bladed tones cut through his reverie. "And so has Harry. How could you bring him here, knowing..."  
  
"Shut up, Mirie." Tiredly, he turned to glance at his friend, who still stared at the Guardian with something akin to shock. "Admiral?"  
  
Harry raised a hand to hush them. "Guardian, show us more. Move ahead slightly."  
  
~~~  
~~~  
  
"Linnis?" Resting a hand on the table, Paris flipped the terminal monitor up for better viewing, lips thinning as he took in the connection. Shuttle cockpit, and his constant despair propped in the pilots chair, peering back at him with a furrowed brow.  
  
"Father..."  
  
"Linnis Paris, I'm going to kill you."  
  
A brief smile rose, but she suppressed it quickly, stiffening to business. "I've requisitioned use of the Cochrane in order to assist the Moneans. My request is on the Captain's desk, I believe, but he may have mistakenly overlooked my arguments for helping them. Now, I have to set in course. If you recall, the planet is approximately..."  
  
"Linnis. We need some semblance of sanity aboard this god-forsaken ship. You, who hates shuttles, who during childhood screamed bloody murder every single time I tried to take you out in one...you want to fly a shuttle all by yourself, breaking orders, just to help the Moneans?"  
  
Her smile slipped another notch, shoulders tightening. "That was the thought, yes."  
  
He ignored the interruption. "Well, I'd like some peace. My wife died...*died* dammit, Linnis, and I'd like to at least have the comfort of my daughter around, and that failing, I'd like to at least think myself up to comforting you. But no, I guess you don't need Daddy anymore, do you? You want a *shuttle*, and an unauthorized mission. I'll never understand you Ocampans and your ways."  
  
"No." Her tones emptied as she turned away, staring out the shuttle viewport absently. "I don't suppose you will."  
  
"I didn't mean for it to come across like that, Linnis, and you damn well know it."  
  
"No, I'm afraid that I don't know it. I cannot help the fact that I'm Ocampan, Father. You and my mother created me, through no choice of mine. I don't hate my human side, I appreciate it a great deal more than you probably appreciate your own humanity. When I was a child, I would...listen to you and Mother as you played cards or enjoyed your evening parties with the Captain and Harry...and I would lie in my bed watching the shadows on the wall, knowing that it would all go away sooner than I wanted. I knew I was growing fast, and that I might not die in nine years, but it would probably still be a brief nineteen...even as a child, I knew that you would outlive me, that you were different, too different, and I thought maybe you didn't like me because of it. That I frightened you. Of course I did, I understand that, you're so human, and good-hearted, and you and Harry were never meant to love people like Kes and I and maybe even Andrew. People who live life in the blink of an eye. I never told you that I didn't sleep because I was a silly child afraid of dying...I couldn't stand the thought of hurting you. Kes always taught me to help...and that's what I want now...to help these people. Understand that, please."  
  
"Crewman Paris, as a superior officer, I'm ordering you to redock that shuttle."  
  
"Commander Paris, I can't do that. I guess I'm a little too much like you." Turning away, she cut the channel.  
  
He swore, grabbing his uniform jacket and heading into the corridor. "You're cooking tonight, Har." Matching pace with his friend and following him into the bridge turbolift, he stared at the wall, back rigid.  
  
"Linnis should be back by then..." Lieutenant Kim paused, holding his padd aloft. "Tom, she did just take the Cochrane on a test run, didn't she?"  
  
"Try a test run to the Monean homeworld. Without permission. Now, while she just might make it home for dinner...I'm betting hers is going to be served in the brig."  
  
"I'll kill her." The words were fevered, despairing.  
  
"Oh, I've got dibs. After Chakotay. That's where I'm headed now, to try and wheedle a shuttle out of him, track her down before she does something all of us really regret. She's too much like me for my liking."  
  
"Tom..." Whatever the Lieutenant had been planning on saying was cut short as the ready room doors swished open. Chakotay leveled them both with glares. "Regarding Linnis. In my ready room, now."  
  
~~~  
~~~  
  
"Guardian." Paris shifted, ignoring the cold knot in his stomach. "Move ahead to the point at which Linnis Paris was returned to Voyager."  
  
~~~  
~~~  
  
Linnis Paris was resisting tears, back ramrod straight, chin tucked up.   
  
The captain of Voyager settled directly before her, glancing down, ignoring the audience. "Crewman Linnis B'Elanna Paris. You are guilty of insubordination, unauthorized use of a spacecraft, reckless endangerment, and conduct unbecoming an officer. Do you have anything to say?"  
  
Her voice was barely audible, eyes turbulent as they broke protocol briefly to glance across the room to the grim-faced third party. "The Riga needed my help."  
  
"In doing so, you disobeyed direct orders."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"You violated the protocols that govern this crew."  
  
"Yes, sir." Her head lifted, shoulders squaring. "Permission to speak freely. Riga's people weren't going to listen. They were going to ignore our warnings."  
  
"You don't know that."  
  
"Riga knew. And I was the only one that could help them. I broke the rules for a reason...for something I believed in."  
  
Briefly, the Indian's eyes softened, but he shook his head finally. "I admire your principles, Linnis, but I can't ignore what you've done. Crewman Paris. I remove you from the rank of acting medical officer, and I sentence you to thirty days of solitary confinement."  
  
"Captain." Finally, the third party spoke, tones half-pleading.  
  
"Commander Paris, you may escort Crewman Paris to the brig."  
  
Linnis followed her father from the room wordlessly.  
  
  
  
*  
  
"It isn't fair." Childish, the phrase, unindulged in for years, but it suited. Wrapping her arms around her waist, the half-Ocampan stared at the turbolift wall, eyes burning. "Thirty days for his command mistake? He was the one who wouldn't help them. What about my son? Does he have any idea how thirty days are to an Ocampan? It's an eternity of missed time."  
  
Tom Paris nodded, absorbing the stark, angry inflections of the words, moving to her side. "It was his command mistake, and I'm beginning to see your Ocampan viewpoint better and better, Linnis...but it was your mistake as well. Chakotay trusted *you* to know your limits. You chose to act beyond them. He has to enforce the rules..."  
  
"Captain is always right?" The first tendrils of hostility rose.   
  
"Not always. In this case, yes." He nodded. "Chakotay isn't a bad man, but he is only a man, and guiding this crew is hard on him. If you had been here when Janeway was alive you'd understand. Protocol was everything to her, and it's his dubious tribute to keep the damned Starfleet charade up..."  
  
"I wasn't born at the time he took command, of course, but I hear that he didn't want to." Hollow, dry, the laugh broke out. "The captain got Voyager through the loss of people that were loved very dearly and could never be replaced..."  
  
"And now he's lost someone else. You feel guilty for depriving Voyager of living, useful crewman, don't you? Like me, the one thing worse than guilt to you is admitting to guilt. Poor Linnis, you're so damnably alike Kes and I both I doubt your two sides will ever reconcile." Shaking his head ruefully, the pilot touched her arm.  
  
"You don't miss anything, do you?" It made her love him fiercely.   
  
He considered, stepping back just slightly, eyeing the security detail outside the doors, touching her shoulder warningly. "If it makes you feel any better, my next three months will be spent devising some crash courses in piloting and Starfleet policy. Can't imagine why Chakotay thinks *I* need the brush-up, but..."  
  
Her laugh, genuine, soft, was worth it. He shook his head, taking her elbow and ignoring the discreet but trailing detail as they made way down the corridors. "Escorting me to the brig?" Her tones were dry, amused.  
  
"Hey, it's a father's duty." Pausing, he met her gaze. "Linnis, what you did was right. I would have done it myself. Just...don't do it again."  
  
"Yes, sir." Kissing his cheek wanly, she stepped behind the forcefield perimeter, watching it shimmer up.  
  
~~~  
~~~  
  
"He never did like a Paris." Tom quipped, eyeing the Guardian tiredly.  
  
Kim met his friends gaze wryly, empathetically. "We have to see this through."  
  
"Yes." Glancing to the side, the ill man smiled dryly. "Better take a seat, Miral, we fools could be here a while."  
  
"I don't see how looking at might have beens will help you." Sighing, the quarter-Klingon took his arm, providing support. "But I'm here."  
  
~~~  
~~~  
  
"She's claustrophobic, Captain. If you don't relent, in a few days I'm going to be treating her for wounds. She'll start beating walls. I know, I've been in her position. I'm asking you as a father and the *new* medical officer to ease the sentence. You've made your point. Don't destroy her with it."  
  
"I'm not cruel, Paris, but everyone on this ship has to understand the limits."  
  
"Starfleet limits, from you? From Janeway, hell, yes, I would expect it. She'd revel in this. But you? I know you, Chakotay, you've broken more than a few rules in the name of principle. It's what got you here...ironically enough, in the command seat."  
  
"She risked the ship, Paris. Her own son. Voyager is a small world, it reverberates. She's in that brig as much for her own safety as Starfleet policy."  
  
"The people on this ship would never hurt her. She's Kes' daughter. They helped raise her, Chakotay."  
  
"She's also your daughter, and some of the people on this ship haven't forgotten your history."  
  
A wry grin cracked the tense face. "Prejudices, Chakotay?"  
  
"If I could afford them, maybe." The Indian leaned forward, brow raising. "But the Captain can't. I'm just warning you, and protecting her."  
  
"Chakotay." Turning away, the younger man began pacing. "She deserves it, I have to admit that. You're doing the command equivalent to my paternal reaction...locking her in her room for a month. But thirty days are an eternity for an Ocampan, even a half-Ocampan. This age reversal nonsense isn't going the way we expected. Instead of aging slower than your average Ocampan, Andrew appears to be stepping the process up. He's aging at the same rate as Linnis, though he's only a fourth Ocampan. Linnis needs every moment possible with her son...while he's still young. Locking her away is inhuman."  
  
"You want to start a whole new discipline chapter for short-lived Ocampa offspring, Paris?" Leaning back, Chakotay rubbed his eyes. He couldn't precisely argue...he had noticed that Andrew Kim was growing at outright alarming rates. The universe's payback for crossbreeding, he supposed, though he somehow doubted Paris or Kim regretted their marriages or progeny. They were just a mess to sort through.   
  
"I want you to forget those Starfleet pips you graced yourself with after Janeway's end and look at the situation through the eyes that led you to the Maquis."  
  
"I'll consider your appeal, Paris."  
  
"Yeah." Brief, bitter humor flashed. "I'm sure you will." Then, the pilot left, heading towards the mess hall grimly.   
  
"Andrew." Stepping in and cornering his prey, he met his grandsons eyes, ruffling the flyaway hair with one hand. "You need to sleep. I'm told it helps growing rascals stock up on energy to wreak havoc with. Frankly, I think the entire ship...your poor father included...would be disappointed if you didn't manage to wreak havoc."  
  
"I miss my mother. I miss Grandma Kes." The boy spoke fiercely, head angling up. "And you expect me to sleep?"  
  
Well, the kid had a point. "Okay, I won't claim I don't understand...but your mother very emphatically recommends a good nights sleep to anyone who'll listen, and your grandmother drug me off to bed every single night promptly at 2100 hours, emergencies allowing. I figure its up to you, me, and your father to live up to the family tradition. You want me to drag you to bed like a child and tell Harry?"  
  
Andrew frowned. If anyone had been more upset by his mother's brig time than he and his grandpa, it had been Dad. "I guess not. I'll go to bed. But I'm not going to sleep."  
  
"Well, that's half the victory, so I'll settle."  
  
"After some leola root stew, of course." Neelix bustled over, holding out a plate beseechingly. Andrew turned faintly green.   
  
"I think that stuff makes me sick."  
  
"Just like your mother, so unappreciative of finer alien cuisine." Shaking his head, the Talaxian stared down. "Well, you do look unwell, young Kim. You just head on off to bed, and I'll follow with your favorite dessert..."  
  
"Neelix." Paris glanced after the departing child, then back to the resident morale officer. "Thanks, but...tell me you aren't giving that to Linnis."  
  
"Oh, no. I've prepared the fine gagh for our lovely brig guest..." Neelix beamed, moving off. "Taking care of them both, Tom."  
  
"Gagh?" The pilot recoiled, glancing down at his own tray. With a sigh, he pushed it aside, resting his head on the table instead. Kes, Kes, Kes...   
  
"Tom." Harry interrupted his sleep, a hand shaking his shoulder roughly, tones annoyed. "Tom, has Andrew passed through here recently?"  
  
Grumbling lightly, Paris sat up. "Neelix just trailed him home with ice cream."  
  
"Well, he's not there. I think he might've gone off into one of the jeffries tubes, trying to access the brig..." The Lieutenant swore as the red alert klaxon rang.   
  
"Go find him." Standing, the pilot nodded, lips tightening. "I'll tell Chakotay when I reach the bridge."  
  
And it was a mess. Taking a swift tally of the casualties, Paris headed for the helm, barely meeting the captain's frustrated gaze. "Andrew is wandering the jeffries tubes, Chakotay, and I'm not available for medical duty. I suggest you recall your prisoner to do what she does best."  
  
"Paris, I don't have time to play games with you-" Chakotay stood, moving forward.  
  
"Captain, three vessels off the port bow." Tuvok interceded smoothly, dark face barely masking his own tension. "All appear to be firing up weapons..."  
  
"Evasive pattern omega-five." Chakotay settled on sitting back down.  
  
"Evasive pattern omega..." Jerking back from his console in surprise, Paris spared a glance backwards and cried out as the electrical charges burst around him.  
  
"Helm rerouted to tactical station. Course laid in." Tuvok informed them slowly, watching with only bare hesitation as his captain lunged forward, pulling the pilot from the inferno with unmuffled curses. He glanced straight ahead, regaining his equilibrium through force. "Releasing security shield surrounding the brig. Emergency transporters are down. Crewman Paris, report to the bridge immediately. Captain?"  
  
"I don't know..." Chakotay flipped the injured over, glancing around him. "Are we clear?"  
  
"Clear." The Vulcan abandoned his own station, kneeling, looking down. The turbolift opened with a rush only moments later, and Linnis stumbled in, grasping a medical kit. Eyes absorbing the damage, she moved forward to the crowd, reigning in her own stifled gasp.   
  
"Crewman?"  
  
Squaring her shoulders, the half-Ocampan ignored the captains querying gaze, instead scanning with a tricorder. Finally, hands shaking, she placed them on his chest, gripping his uniform tightly. "Daddy..."  
  
"Crewman, report."   
  
Her glare was sudden, brutal. "I can't help him." Sitting back on her heels, Linnis Paris held her father's dying body and cried.  
  
~~~  
~~~  
  
"Well." Miral stepped back, face whitening faintly. "Are you happy with that?"  
  
"No." Tom Paris admitted, shoulders sagging. "Not at all." Moving slowly, numbly, he paced a path in the sand, rubbing his neck. "Harry...Kes only saw the semi-good part. She lived with...the regret, the thought that she'd given up...a good personal future, a happy one. But it wasn't, not always. If I could tell her that, maybe she wouldn't be so..."  
  
The Admiral withdrew from his stunned silence, turning sharply. "Bitter? Wouldn't do the things she did to Voyager? Tom, that's the point. You can't interfere. If you go find Kes through the Guardian and tell her not to regret her choice, her whole future might change. OUR whole future. There are reasons we have protocols guiding..."  
  
"Like they guided Voyager's crew."  
  
"Don't compare it."  
  
"I can't help comparing it. There." Paris lunged forward, stopping only at his daughters grip, pointing into the gateway. "Halt it. See, there, Harry...it was after the party, after we'd gotten Kes back...that's where I'm supposed to go. To talk to her. Even the Guardian is telling me where to go."  
  
"You can't do that, Tom. You can't interfere in the past."  
  
"Interfere? Interfere?" The words poured out, angry, unbroken. "Hell, Harry, she saw heaven, all she ever wanted, and had to prevent it from happening. She spent the rest of her life...her poor, tortured life...regretting it. I have to tell her, that she did the right thing, that it wasn't all joy she missed..."  
  
"You really loved her, didn't you?" The voice from behind them was low, soft, dry.  
  
"B'Elanna..." Paris turned, grasping her hands feverishly, meeting the tired, dark eyes desperately. "I have to tell her."  
  
She shook her head, gripping his hands. "Paris, it could change her future."  
  
"It could also change our past." He caught her face with shaking hands. "For better."  
  
"I can't support this." Admiral Kim backed away.  
  
"Not asking you to. I'm just asking you to support me, all three of you."  
  
Backing away as well, the half-Klingon nodded slowly, chin lifting. "Let him go, Miral."  
  
"Mother..."  
  
"Let go, Mirie, and it's no request."  
  
"I'll never understand either of you." Stepping to the side, Miral Paris watched her father step through the gateway, then turned away to rejoin her mother and the admiral. They waited in silence.  
  
The holodeck. Sandrine's. Tom Paris had forgotten just how much he had missed the dark little hovel.  
  
Moving forward, he stared at the woman dangling her feet from a barstool, holding a padd up...the same padd, God...and staring at it intently. He had also almost forgotten how very damned adorable she was. Forgotten too much. "Computer, privacy lock, authorization Paris."  
  
"Authorization accepted." The on again, off again verification rang out. Kes sat her cup down with a clatter, turning, eyes widening with faint shock as she took him in. "Tom? Oh, Tom, where..."  
  
Moving forward, he held up the padd, his older, battered version. "I got your message."  
  
Her lips pursed, hands entwining as he took the seat beside her. "I never intended for you to find it, I thought I had hidden it very well."  
  
"They took Voyager apart bulkhead by bulkhead. This padd was a historical goldmine, Kes. I'm just lucky they let me have it."  
  
"You read it." Her eyes glinted with tears, slender fingers reaching up to canvass his face. "After so very long, you read it. I'm sorry."  
  
Shaking his head, he met her gaze, smiling. "No, Kes, I didn't just read it...I saw it. You remember from Voyager's database...the time portal, The Guardian Of Forever. I had the chance to go to it, to...watch. I saw it, that timeline."  
  
"Voyager made it back to the Alpha Quadrant. You were able to see Linnis through your technology." The words were soft, reverent.  
  
"And Andrew. And everything else."  
  
"I have to give it up, Tom, I can't do anything else. If the timeline does transpire uninterrupted, there will be Linnis, and Andrew...but no Captain Janeway, no B'Elanna. Perhaps...no Alpha Quadrant."  
  
No B'Elanna Torres, leader of Qo'NoS, no Miral, and eventually no Tom Paris. Pushing the thought away, he gripped her hand, marveling at the warmth, the liveliness pulsing.   
  
"Tom." This time, her hands were the ones gripping, her eyes the ones seeking. "I see pain in your eyes, and I can only imagine what put it there...but I know I can't help that. I can't let our timeline unfold here...in this reality. That doesn't mean it won't in another reality. Linnis may be out there, and all of them. For another Kes, and another Tom. We have to accept what this reality grants us."  
  
If only she knew. Reclaiming a hand, he rubbed his neck. "Of course, you're too damned sensible to do anything else."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Please, don't ever be." Dry, tired, the laugh broke forth.  
  
"Tom..."  
  
"No, don't." He pressed shaky fingers to her lips. "And don't listen to me. Everyone says I'm senile. You're doing the right thing."  
  
"And you came all the way from the future just to tell me that?" Her smile grew, eyes glowing.  
  
"I don't get out much anymore, thought I'd really make a go at it." The quip was half-hearted, but she laughed, and it was enough. "It was something you needed to know. Something I want you to remember."  
  
"I will." Helping him stand, she rested a hand on his arm briefly. "You could stay, talk to the rest of them. They'll know another Tom Paris was here, two identical biosignatures will be impossible to explain."  
  
"But they won't know anything else. That's how it has to be. I trust you with the information. You trusted me with our reality." Pulling away, he glanced sharply across the room, recognizing the energy building. Winds, howling, and an odd feeling, almost otherworldly...with what little strength he had, he pushed her back towards the bar. "Hide, under the bar, and hold on, I don't know...pull you in..."  
  
Tom Paris disappeared into the swirling waves of wind and energy.  
  
B'Elanna Torres, leader of Qo'NoS, caught him as he fell back.  
  
Tom Paris burst through the holodeck door, phaser raised.  
  
B'Elanna Torres, Chief Engineer of Voyager, caught him as he fell back.  
  
"Guardian?" Kneeling over her husband's body, B'Elanna Torres stared upward, gray hair swirling in the wind, eyes dark, tear-filled.  
  
"I am the Guardian of Forever."  
  
"I don't want to know anything." Falling back on her heels, B'Elanna Torres pulled Tom Paris into her shaking arms.  
  
"I..." Struggling away from the bar, Kes stared at the two officers before her, face stark white.  
  
"I don't want to know anything." Falling back on her heels, B'Elanna Torres pulled Tom Paris into her shaking arms. 


End file.
